


Tylenol

by StreakingHerculobus



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Sibling Bonding, War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-28
Updated: 2017-08-27
Packaged: 2018-11-19 23:05:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 861
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11323587
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StreakingHerculobus/pseuds/StreakingHerculobus
Summary: Wanda and Pietro's experience in the rubble waiting for death. Complete.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> There are some pains that only each other can alieve.

Category: Movies » Avengers  
Language: English  
Genre: Family/Friendship  
Written: 11-09-15  
Chapters: 1, Words: 494

"In Sarajevo in 1992, while being shown around the starved, bombarded city by the incomparable John Burns, I   experienced four near misses in all, three of them in the course of one day."  -Christopher Hitchens, _Hitch-22: A Memoir_

**Chapter 1: I**

April 12, 1999

4:59:34 AM

They waited with an SMI-37 air-to-surface missile not five feet away, a sitting potential object of their destruction. The building was caved in from one weapon which did manage to detonate a block over. Wanda and Pietro huddled in the corner as far away as possible in constant trepidation.

Pietro couldn't stop imagining how the explosion would occur. One shake of the ground or a shift in the ceiling, and first the shock wave, then the shrapnel and extreme heat, but none of it will be distinguishable from the other. They will die within the second, bodies burned and obliterated beyond recognition, just another civilian casualty, never to be found in the rubble.

Wanda couldn't shift her focus from the name on the shell. In unspoken clarity, the words caused everything to fade around it, the condemnation from some earthly god called Stark. With each passing hour, she grew to hate that name, loathed the sound of it on her lips as a whisper, and despised the sight of its letters. STARK was forever etched into her mind, as well as Pietro's.

They remained hydrated from a thin sheet of water which pooled from under the crack of a concrete wall where it met the floor. They would take turns lapping up every last bit of moisture, and it was sufficient enough. Hunger was a different issue entirely. They were growing weaker with each night spent suffocating in that small little cove. Compared to starving to death, they supposed that the bomb could be considered a mercy.

They didn't speak. There was nothing to say. They had already been through so much, experienced and seen so many things that only children could walk away from with their humanity intact, that this seemed a congruent end to their remarkably tragic lives.

On the third day Pietro felt like it had to be said. The words had been stewing in his heart from the moment they were ripped from their parents, albeit adoptive. So without even turning to look, he stated factually, "I love you."

It had been implied all along, yet saying it out loud caused a different kind of peace to descend on his spirit. And from Wanda he certainly didn't expect anything in return. He just wanted her to know. He realized that this is all he had in life, and glancing at her he was fine with that.

Wanda likewise considered how if she had a choice she would gladly spend these few years with Pietro in  _hell_  than live a long and "prosperous" life on some far off shore, separated.

She would lay her life down without hesitation for him. If there was a way for her to sacrifice herself for her brother in this situation then she would have already done it.

So naturally with the same distant voice, she replied, "I love you, too."


	2. Chapter 2

Out on the streets, the nights lasted longer than they remembered. Why did they last so long?

Their hearts were broken, not just in the sense they were extremely sad or disappointed, but in the sense their feelings were always in flux. Only one constant remained, and that was their love for each other.

So its easy to imagine how, as orphans in a war torn country such as Sokovia, they might resort to theft, petty though it was (still putting food in their mouths) to survive?

An anger burned, true, in its various forms, alternating between bitterness and rage and hate. Any mention or sight of the name, STARK, and those tempers would churn, that enmity eventually spilling over for the West as a whole.

The Berlin Wall, peacefully cast down. Brzasevo, the capital of their little Balkan state, turned to smithereens.  
And whose bombs were laying waste to their cities, their buildings, their families? Falling without regard for friend or foe. (NATO was certainly living up to its neutral status in this conflict). A simple policy. Everything dead winter dead. Parents dead.

Not just dead, but crushed before their eyes. A peaceful passing is hard enough to cope with. It's always too soon,  
But murdered, in plain sight of their five year old eyes. They realized if they had seen that much in five years, how much will they see in the future?

A lot, they intended. They already saw the worst of what the world has to offer, that is, the loss of everything they knew, even deeper than that, the loss of their father and mother so soon, not what nature intended.

And so they with this next decision they would stand up for the orphans. They would stand up for the innocent bystanders.

Shelled cities. Burnt streets. It happened to them. They'd make sure it wouldn't happen to anyone else.

All they needed was power.


End file.
